Already Gone - By John Rector Page 0,77

me. “Maybe some time alone, just the two of you, away from all this, will make things clearer.”

I stare at the keys and don’t say anything.

Doug picks up the map, unfolds it, and lays it flat on the surface of the table. “Here’s where you’re going.” He turns the map so I can see. “El Regalo, right here. When you get there, talk to a man named Oscar Guzman. He runs the local market in town, and he takes care of the house for me. Everything in town goes through him. I’ll write a letter of introduction for you before you go. Give it to him, and he’ll help you with anything you need.”

“You shouldn’t do that. If we get stopped, they’ll know you helped us.”

“I’ll take the chance,” Doug says. “But that’s as far as I’ll go. Once you’re down there, neither of you should try contacting me or anyone else back here for at least a month, maybe longer.”

I nod. “It’s a deal.”

“Good.” Doug sips his coffee, then looks back at the map. “Let me show you the best place to cross, and a few of the back roads you can take to avoid the police.”

When Diane wakes up, we all sit in the kitchen, and I tell her the plan. She listens, sometimes looking at the map, sometimes staring out the window at the cars passing along the street.

When I finish, she turns to Doug and says, “Thank you for this.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he says. “Wait until you get across the border, then you can thank me.”

“Okay, I will.”

Doug pushes himself up from the table and motions for us to follow. “Let’s see if we can find you two some clean clothes.”

Doug has a lot of T-shirts. We borrow a few, then take a couple bottles of water and walk out to the garage and the SUV.

“Follow the roads I showed you. It’ll take a couple more hours, but you’ll be safer.”

I set the water on the driver’s seat, then turn and hold out my hand.

Doug shakes it and hands me an envelope.

“Oscar Guzman.”

I turn the envelope over, then slide it into my back pocket. I want to let Doug know how sorry I am for the way things turned out. He’s put a lot of faith in me over the years, and I can’t help but feel like I’ve let him down, like it was all for nothing.

I start to tell him this, but he waves me off and motions to the glove compartment. “I left you something in case you run into any trouble.”

I hesitate, then reach in and open the latch. There is a .38 inside, and I stare at it for a moment without speaking.

“It’s a good gun,” he says. “Hope you never have to use it.”

“Me too. Thank you.”

“Just keep your eyes open, Jake.” He looks over at Diane as she climbs into the passenger seat, then back at me. “I mean it.”

– 48 –

By the time we get on the road, the morning traffic is just starting to thin. We pass a couple cop cars on the way out of town, and each time my nerves splinter a little more. It’s not until the city is far behind us that I feel myself start to relax.

Diane doesn’t.

Every now and then I catch her looking over my shoulder at the speedometer, and I slow down.

She asks if I want her to drive.

“No,” I say. “It keeps me calm.”

“If we get pulled over—”

“We’re not going to get pulled over.”

“But if we do—”

“I know.”

The words come out harsher than I’d intended, but I don’t care. Diane doesn’t need to lecture me on what will happen if we’re pulled over. We don’t have papers on the SUV, and neither of us has a driver’s license. My face is bandaged and bruised, and there’s a gun in the glove compartment. Any cop would be suspicious.

“It’s important, Jake. We need to be careful.”

I lean forward and turn on the radio. Diane takes the hint. After a few minutes the sound of the DJ’s voice starts to give me a headache, so I shut it off.

I expect Diane to start in again on my driving, but instead she turns toward the passenger window and ignores me.

We drive for several hours in silence.

I stick to the roads Doug told me about. Most are minor highways, two lanes cutting a wide black gash through the hills and down into the desert. The few cars we see are either dusty,